It’s official—we lastly have a complete determine for MacKenzie Scott’s donations this 12 months: an eye-popping $7.2 billion. That brings the billionaire philanthropist’s complete items since 2020 to $26 billion and greater than 2,700 items. This squarely locations Scott among the many most beneficiant philanthropists, alongside fellow billionaires Invoice Gates, Melinda French Gates, and Warren Buffett—all of whom introduced main giving plans this 12 months.
“This greenback complete will probably be reported within the information, however any greenback quantity is a vanishingly tiny fraction of the non-public expressions of care being shared into communities this 12 months,” Scott wrote in an essay revealed Tuesday. “To make use of only one 12 months in america for instance, the overall donated to US charities of every kind in 2020 was $471 billion, practically a 3rd of it in increments of lower than $5,000.”
This 12 months, the philanthropist, novelist, and ex-wife of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos made donations to greater than 180 organizations, a lot of which have been centered on DEI, schooling, catastrophe restoration, and humanitarian causes.
Her largest disclosed donations this 12 months, based on her group Yield Giving, embody:
- Blackfeet Neighborhood Faculty: $80 million
- Projeto Saúde e Alegria: $80 million
- Filantropía Puerto Rico: $80 million
- Thurgood Marshall Faculty Fund: $70 million
- HSF: $70 million
- UNCF (United Negro Faculty Fund): $70 million
- Prairie View A&M College: $63 million
- North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State College: $63 million
- California State College, Northridge: $63 million
- Morgan State College; $63 million
- Howard College: $63 million
Scott’s giving type
Many of those items have been the most important single donations ever obtained by the respective organizations. And lots of have gone to organizations engaged on points which have skilled main cuts from the Trump administration—particularly a $60 million donation to the Heart for Catastrophe Philanthropy this fall. The present got here after the Trump administration’s cuts to the Federal Emergency Administration Company (FEMA)—a corporation Individuals depend on for assist throughout and after hurricanes, wildfires, tornadoes, and floods.
“All sectors of society—public, personal, and social—share duty for serving to communities thrive after a catastrophe,” CDP president and CEO Patricia McIlreavy instructed Fortune. “Philanthropy performs a crucial function in offering communities with assets to rebuild stronger, but it surely can’t—and shouldn’t—exchange authorities and its important duties.”
However what makes Scott’s philanthropic efforts so impactful is her giving type. Scott makes unrestricted items, that means the organizations can use the donations nonetheless they select to take action.
“She practices trust-based philanthropy,” Anne Marie Dougherty, CEO of the Bob Woodruff Basis, instructed Fortune.
The veterans-focused Bob Woodruff Basis has obtained two items from Scott: a $15 million present in 2022, and a subsequent $20 million donation this fall. The $15 million present was the most important in historical past on the time for the group, which is nearly 20 years previous now—based the identical 12 months navy reporter Bob Woodruff was severely injured by a roadside bomb in Iraq. It was cofounded by Woodruff and his household to supply help for injured service members, veterans, and their households.
Noni Ramos, CEO of Housing Belief Silicon Valley, additionally beforehand instructedFortune that Scott’s donations are “not like conventional funding processes,” which usually contain prolonged functions, particular restrictions, and reporting necessities.
“Her type empowers organizations like ours to find out how greatest to direct funds rapidly and innovatively to deal with urgent points,” Ramos stated. Her group obtained a $30 million donation from Scott in 2024.
In actual fact, some say Scott’s philanthropic type is so transformative it may change giving for years to come back.
“At a second when philanthropy is deciding its function in shaping our future, [her gifts point] to a path ahead within the second half of this defining decade,” Melanie Allen, co-director of Hive Fund, stated in a press release. The climate- and gender-justice-focused Hive Fund obtained a part of a $140 million present to climate-focused organizations, additionally together with Fairness Fund and The Options challenge.
“As federal local weather commitments are rolled again and public funding turns into more and more unsure, frontline local weather leaders are met with rising challenges however with fewer assets to enact revolutionary, domestically responsive options,” Gloria Walton, CEO of The Options Challenge, added. “I hope that is just the start of an urgently-needed infusion of funding.”
Why Scott donates a lot cash
Though Scott had a profession writing novels earlier than her marriage to Bezos, the overwhelming majority of her wealth got here as the results of her 2019 divorce from the world’s fifth-richest man. Throughout their marriage, Scott performed a key function in Amazon’s founding and early operations, together with serving to with enterprise plans and contracts. She obtained roughly a 4% stake in Amazon upon their divorce—a minimize equal to roughly 139 million shares on the time.
She’s since decreased her Amazon stake by about 42% by promoting or donating about 58 million shares. Nonetheless, Scott is value about $40 billion immediately regardless of having donated greater than $27 billion to charitable organizations by means of her basis Yield Giving, which she based in 2022.
Her proclivity for giving started in school when she witnessed two main acts of generosity: Her dentist provided her free dental work when he noticed her securing a damaged tooth with denture glue, and her school roommate who loaned her $1,000 when she noticed her crying about practically having to drop out throughout her sophomore 12 months.
“It’s these ripple results that make imagining the facility of any of our personal acts of kindness unattainable,” Scott wrote within the Dec. 9 essay. “The potential of peaceable, non-transactional contribution has lengthy been underestimated, typically on the idea that it’s not financially self-sustaining, or that a few of its advantages are onerous to trace. However what if these imagined liabilities are literally property?”
What’s extra, Scott additionally says giving simply feels good.
“Generosity and kindness have interaction the identical pleasure facilities within the mind as intercourse, meals, and receiving items, and so they enhance our well being and long-term happiness as properly,” she stated.
